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EU allows Lithuania to ban Russian tv channel

The European Commission said on Friday that a Lithuanian three-month suspension of Russian-language tv channel RTR Planeta was justified. "Lithuania has demonstrated that there have been manifest, serious and grave infringements of the prohibition of incitement to hatred," the commission said. This is the second time RTR Planeta has been temporarily banned by Lithuania after the commission allowed it in 2015.

Central European countries say they have "nothing to hide" on rule of law issues - while justice commissioner Vera Jourova said they should agree to the Commission's controversial budget plans on rule of law conditionality.

Giovanni Buttarelli, the European data protection supervisor, says the EU-US data sharing pact known as Privacy Shield will play an increasingly minor role given the general data protection regulation.